


Cicurate

by WeMetAtTheDisco



Series: Hiraeth [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Canon compliant Luther dickishness, Fix-It, Season Rewrite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:26:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26267947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WeMetAtTheDisco/pseuds/WeMetAtTheDisco
Summary: Klaus won't let Luther keep their sister in a cage.
Series: Hiraeth [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1908451
Comments: 13
Kudos: 175





	Cicurate

> **Cicurate**   
>  **(v.) to tame or reclaim from the wildness or madness**   
>  **❈❈❈❈**

Luther will be furious when he finds out, but they'll be long gone before he can do shit about it, so Klaus shoves his last armload of clothing into the green duffel bag that's sitting on his bed and pushes it down until he can tug the zipper closed. The teeth scream with finality as they come together to swallow this budding secret whole and it's too loud in the silence of his bedroom; sounds like an alarm. The echo of it blares in his ears and he tenses, half-expecting Luther to come bursting in, broad shoulders ripping through chunks of the walls and ready to stop Klaus where he is now and throw his weight around and make sure that no one forgets who **"Number One"** is.

But he doesn't. 

No one else hears the sound. 

No one comes into his room. 

It's more than likely that no one is even thinking about him or what he's doing. And, for once, that's exactly what he's counting on. It's what he needs as he creeps out of his bedroom on feet so light that they barely touch the ground. He tiptoes through the hall and holds his breath so that he can sneak past Allison's bedroom where the door is tightly shut but he can still hear the soft murmurs of Luther trying to defend his actions to her. Odds are that he's so wrapped up in trying to make Allison see him as a hero that he wouldn't hear the building crumbling down around him, much less the sound of Klaus sneaking by, but he still avoids every loose floorboard that he can remember from nights of childhood rebellion and doesn't exhale until he's past the line of bedrooms. 

That's when he starts running. 

"You think we'll be able to get her all the way out of the house before Luther notices?" Ben is suddenly right there, bleeding into the moment like ink spilled out against paper, running alongside Klaus with an expression of determination that matches the feeling in Klaus' gut. 

"Nope," he says, popping the "p" with both vigor and a grim smile to follow as they round the corner. Their shoulders slam together but Ben slips right through him and there's no pain from the would-be collision, just an icy chill that shudders all the way through him as they come to a stuttering, uncoordinated halt in front of the elevator doors. "But we're doing it anyway." 

He slams his hand against the single button on the shiny frame of the elevator and the doors open immediately with a sigh of cold air that washes over Klaus. He shudders as tremors automatically shoot up his spine in sharp little bursts. He remembers that feeling of being swallowed up by the cold, when the darkness of the mausoleum would swallow him whole and chew him up with teeth made of ice. Tearing him open so that fear could find its way inside of him; tearing him open so that the ghosts that screamed his name from all corners of the dark could reach into him with gnarled, decomposing fingers and latch onto him, begging him to save them from deaths that had already come. 

He takes an involuntary step back and Ben is right there in a second, staring at him with an edge in his eyes that are as deadly as Diego's knives. 

"No," he says, shaking his head. "You can't run away from this. Look at me, Klaus. This isn't the mausoleum. There's no ghosts down there. Just our sister. Our sister who needs our help, who needs to be let out just like you needed to be let out. You gotta go down there, okay? And you gotta open the door. For both of you." 

Klaus inhales shakily, but he nods. "I know. I'm fine. Let's do this." 

"Good. Let's go." 

They step inside and the door shudders closed with a metallic groan while Klaus starts to press the one button inside impatiently. Once, twice, five times until the doors shut and it shudders again as it starts to plunge them deep down into the depths of the mansion. 

"So, what's the plan?" Ben asks, over the hum of the elevator. "What are we going to do after we get her out?" 

"...Um." 

Ben stares at him. "You have a plan, right?" 

"What? Of course!" Klaus says, defensively. He raises both of his hands up in a gesture of surrender and adjusts the bag on his shoulder. "This is a mission and you can't just walk into a mission without a plan. I have a great plan. And that plan is that we go down into the creepy 50-Shades-Of knockoff dungeon, let Vanya out, and then we leave. The house. Together." 

"...Klaus, that's not a plan," Ben folds his arms across his chest. "That's barely an outline." 

“…Okay,” he said, annoyed. “I have half a plan." 

"It's not even half of a -"

"Fine, an idea! I have an idea. And my idea is to get Vanya out. Which is a pretty good idea if I say so myself. And the exact details of my idea will unfold as we go along. Sometimes you have to be spontaneous, Ben. Live a little.” 

“He says to his dead brother.” 

“It’s been over a decade. When are you going to stop dwelling on the past?" 

The elevator doors open to the freezing cold of the subterranean lair before Ben could retort and Klaus drops his shoulder so that the duffel bag slid down his arm and he shoves it at Ben. 

"Hold this," it falls through Ben's outstretched hands immediately and hits the floor with a dull thud. "Thanks. I'll be right back. Yell the safe word if someone uses the elevator." 

"The safe -- what safe word?" 

"I don't know! Make one up!" 

And then he’s running. 

It's a long, dimly lit stone hallway. There are puddles of condensation on the floor from where water drips down the walls. It's cold and it's wet and it's grey and... and it's not the mausoleum. It's not. It's a hell of its own kind, but it's not HIS hell and he can get through this.

"Vanya!" 

Klaus doesn't know if she can hear him, but that doesn't stop him from shouting her name as he catches sight of the cell at the end of the hall. The muscles in his legs are burning and his lungs are screaming in protest but he forces himself to move faster, scrambling when he slips in a puddle of water. Vanya's still there, staring past the small window on the door with a vacant expression on her face. Her lips are parted and she's completely transfixed -- maybe catatonic from the trauma -- and Klaus waves his hands in front of the window like a maniac. His movement brings her back into focus. She blinks at him a few times before settling back into reality and she starts to frantically slam the palm of her hand against the window, shouting something at him that he can't hear through the door. 

"Vanny!" He yells back, anyway. "It's okay. It's okay, you hear me? I'm going to get you out. Just stay calm. I'm going to - Jesus, this thing is heavy!" 

Klaus swears as he pulls on the circular handle with all his might, the rusted hinges shrieking in either protest or warning. His hands burn from the friction and his arms ache with exertion but he pulls and pulls and pulls and _pulls_ until it suddenly twists in the direction that he's tugging. He spins it and the door pops open with a sound like a cork bursting from a warm bottle of champagne. He drags it the rest of the way open and then uses his hip to keep it from swinging shut again, holding a hand out to his sister. 

"I feel like this should be a warm reunion moment where we hug and maybe cry all over each other, but we don't have time for that. We have to go." 

"...Go?" Vanya asks, staring at him like she's not sure whether or not to trust him. "Go where?" 

"Literally anywhere but here. Maybe Disneyland? I've never been and I think it would be a great way to relax and unwind from this whole world almost ending thing. But we can talk more about it later, once we're out of this house. And can you maybe speed up your exit just a smidge? This door is threatening to crush my pelvis." 

Vanya steps out of the cell in a daze, still looking at Klaus like she's never seen anything like him. There's a faint glow to her skin, like she's been dusted in starlight and Klaus has never seen anything like that; wonders how close her powers are to the surface. "Why are you helping me right now? I don't... after what I did to Allison?" 

"I know it was an accident. And I know that you don't belong in here. I know you don't — you don’t have any reason to trust me. But I need you to. And we can talk about everything else once we're gone. Can you do that? Can you loan me a little bit of faith?" 

Vanya nods, her long hair falling into her face and her voice cracking with emotion.The glow fades. "Yeah. Yes. I can." 

"Good. Then let's go." 

He takes her hand and squeezes gently as they both turn away from the last of Sir Reginald's atrocities and race for the elevator together. Ben's still inside with the duffel at his feet and he rushes for Vanya as soon as Klaus has her crowded into the elevator and hits the button to send them back up. Ben can't touch her, but he looms over her shoulder. Stands close in a sad, simple gesture of comfort that she can't see or feel. 

"Where are we going to go?" Vanya asks as the doors shut. She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand and grabs onto the bronze support rail as the elevator shakes. "My apartment?" 

"Only to grab whatever you need," Klaus says, shouldering the duffel bag again. "Clothes and stuff. But we can't stay there or anywhere else that Luther might know about. Not as long as he still thinks you're dangerous." 

Vanya wraps her arms around herself and inhales shakily. "Aren't I? Dangerous?" 

Klaus snorts. It's not a happy sound -- it's just a step above resentment. And he thinks darkly of their father as he answers her. “Aren’t we all?” 

The elevator doors open before she can answer.

  
❈❈❈

There are approximately fifty-five different exits out of the Hargreeves manor. And there wasn't a single one that they weren't expected to know and flee out of at the drop of a hat; Dad had made them learn how to escape through each one by muscle memory alone, sending them blindfolded throughout the home with shock collars wrapped around their necks that delivered increasingly painful bites of electricity for every five minutes that they were still inside. _An attack upon this manor could happen at any moment._ Klaus could hear their father's voice as clearly as if he were standing in front of them now. _You must be prepared to fight through any condition and any pain to exit and regroup as a team. Never, ever let them separate you._

The old man must be rolling in his grave to know that he was the one who separated them. Not some imagined outside force. The trauma was calling from inside the house and now he's on the way out with Vanya in tow, feeling a lot like he did as a kid, desperately searching for the exit that he’d been assigned to leave through; he can almost feel the weight of the collar around his neck, feels his shoulders tensing as if waiting for the next shock. But it doesn’t come and he forces himself to think past the dread as they slip out the second story window and drop down onto the shrubs outside.

(Except for Ben, who shudders out of reality and then bleeds back in while Klaus is pulling splinters from his fingers.) 

It's a hard landing. They're walking away with bruises and uncertainty as they dash through the garden to the wrought iron gate. But Klaus can feel it -- that moment of relief when he gets far enough away that the collar deactivates and he's no longer in danger of getting zapped. 

That's what this feels like. The end of something miserable. 

And maybe the beginning of something a little less shitty. 


End file.
